I’ve seen people talk about actors and artists that had a terrible time.
My own would be Anne Rice. She wrote Interview with the Vampire after her young daughter died of Leukemia. Then her husband suddenly died of a brain hemorrhage. I suspect her Christian, anti-fanfic phase was a result of mental illness and manipulation from the publishers, although I don’t think she ever apologized.
Yet it sort of does, because you start looking back at the characterisations and stereotypes she used in writing the originals and realise that there was bias in her writing from the beginning, that you didn’t notice because you were yet a child and yet unfamiliar with how stereotype can subconsciously affect people’s interactions and have an effect in society.
I never experienced the harry Potter fandom throwing slurs at me. If anything that stuff came from people who probably didn’t read any books. At the end of the day she inspired a whole generation of kids to read. There’s a lot of good that came from that.
And apparently “the kids these days” are terrible readers and do not read as a hobby. Part of it is b/c they never learned how to read but they keep getting moved along to the next grade b/c being held back was deemed too stigmatizing.
People say she inspired a whole generation of kids to read. Honestly, so much of that was marketing spin by her publishing company.
Those books were a publishing fad, but others came before her and after her. Kids were always reading. They just weren’t all reading the same thing.